Book: “What She Found in the Woods” by Josephine Angelini
Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, December 2020
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.
Book Description: Running from a scandal at her New York private school, Magdalena heads to her family home to recover under the radar.
Over-medicated and under-confident, she’s fearful she’ll never escape her past.
Until she meets Bo out hiking. Wild, gorgeous and free, he makes her believe she might finally be able to move on.
But when a mutilated body is discovered in the woods, Magdalena realises she can’t trust anyone. Not even herself.
Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!
In a moment of ‘why did no one tell me this’, last November I was looking at my Highlights list for December, only to discover that one of the books I had highlighted had been postponed until Spring of this year. So I needed to go looking for a new title that I could highlight, and hit a bunch of lists for December publications. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I panic! But I was happy when I saw “What She Found in the Woods” by Josephine Angelini, as the description was checking off a LOT of my boxes. A privileged girl running from a private school scandal, a strange boy who may be hiding something, and dead bodies popping up in the wilderness, my gosh, what a treasure trove! I was lucky enough to get a copy via NetGalley, and dove in hoping for a fun read. But sadly, checked boxes or no, “What She Found in the Woods” ended up not gelling for me.
While it certainly has a promising premise and it did have some moments of tension because of a solid build up, “What She Found in the Woods” just didn’t thrill me the way that I wanted it to. The first issue I had was the characters themselves. Magdalena, our protagonist, had a well plotted slow burn of a reveal to her past, but I feel like there was too much piled on once we got past the first initial ‘bad thing’ that was revealed just to make it ‘extra bad’. We really didn’t need the additional issues after the first one (being vague as best as I can here), as it felt like too much to me. There was also a huge reliance on mental health problems as plot progression, or being used as potential foreshadowing, which doesn’t really count as character development, and is a bit problematic as it’s seen as a weakness or potential for violent behavior. And then there is Bo, the mysterious Wild Boy who lives in the wilderness with his family. I thought that Angelini did address how his social skills may not be up to par, though he felt a little manic pixie dream boy for a good amount of the time. There was also a glossed over ‘oh he’s going to go to college’ aspect to his storyline which didn’t feel very thought out, as how? How is he going to go to college? There are so many hoops that he would have to jump through within the context of him going that just saying ‘oh he’s going to’ doesn’t really cut it.
On top of that, the story itself wasn’t too thrilling for me. I wasn’t invested in who was maybe killing people in the woods, as to whether it was Bo or a mysterious entity known as Dr. Goodnight. The commentary on addiction and poverty was interesting enough, but ultimately it barely scratched the surface and the bigger priority was whether or not the instalove between Magdalena and Bo was going to work out, either because of her mental issues, or his potential for having a role in what was happening in the woods. By the time we got to the big climax, I just kind of wanted to be done for the sake of being done.
I’d been really struggling with if I wanted to go into spoilers for this review, just because those who may want to read it should go in without having to worry about having aspects of the mystery ruined. But one of my biggest gripes outside of ‘it just didn’t thrill me’ is tangled with a pretty big spoiler. But I think that I need to address it, so, as always, here is your
So, one of the big questions in this mystery is why Bo and his family have been living in the woods off the grid, and why they are so paranoid about Bo being discovered, and why he has to pretty much say goodbye to them once he leaves the woods for a college life. It is eventually revealed that Bo’s father Ray was an anesthesiologist who started doing a Dr. Kevorkian kind of service, where people who were dying and in agony wanted him to euthanize them to end their suffering. I actually liked that this book brought up issues of euthanasia and bodily autonomy, and whether or not people should have the right to decide when they end their life with the assistance of those who can make it painless and with dignity. This is the worst thing that he has done in this book (so this is the big spoiler: he is NOT Dr. Goodnight), a string of acts that are illegal, but seen as a huge grey area depending on whom you speak to. SO THAT SAID, since he is eventually shown as a medical professional who was participating in illegal, but morally complicated, acts, and wasn’t actively seeking out to cause pain and suffering to others, it felt COMPLETELY incongruous when in the story he encourages Magdalena to go off her very complex prescription regimen when that is SO dangerous to do. When it was possible that he was doing that as a sadist, I was thinking ‘okay, maybe’, but when it’s revealed that no, he’s NOT a sadist, that whole aspect just felt like either a lazy red herring (which IS incredibly damaging, as even though Magdalena eventually gets back on medication that she needs, it’s mentioned in passing, which doesn’t stand out), or a complete disservice to the character in that it just doesn’t mesh with who we eventually see him as.
“What She Found in the Woods” really had potential on paper, but just didn’t live up to it. I think that if I knew someone was just starting to dabble in unreliable narrator tropes in their stories I could see myself recommending it, but there are many that are better executed.
Rating 4: A promising concept to be sure, but a ho hum and at times uneven execution.
Reader’s Advisory:
“What She Found in the Woods” isn’t on many specific Goodreads lists, but I think that it would fit in on “YA Involving Mental Health Issues (2000-Present)”.
Find “What She Found in the Woods” at your library using WorldCat, or at a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!
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